Sounding the ice cap alarm while ignoring the elephant

Friday

Sep 28, 2012 at 12:01 AMSep 28, 2012 at 6:00 AM

By Steve Goreham

On Sept. 20, the PBS News Hour did a segment titled “Arctic Icecap Shrinks to Record Low Level,” with Ray Suarez interviewing Walt Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Ray leads off the segment: “The seasonal shrinkage in Arctic ice is more extensive than ever before. … According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, the low point came on Sunday, when ice covered just 24 percent of the Arctic Ocean. The previous low of 29 percent was set in 2007.” The substance of the PBS segment was correct but misleading for what it did not tell viewers.

PBS has long supported Climatism, the belief that man-made greenhouse gases are destroying Earth’s climate. PBS programming and website carry stories about melting icecaps, stronger hurricanes, flash floods, drought, wildfires, and even a poor cherry crop in Michigan, all assumed to be due to man-made emissions of carbon dioxide, a trace gas in our atmosphere.

To an objective observer who looks at the science, the theory of man-made global warming is incredible. Only four of every 10,000 air molecules are carbon dioxide and the amount that mankind could have added in all of human history is a fraction of only one of these molecules. Yet PBS and others claim that CO2 emissions are the source of our coming climate destruction.

During the interview, Ray Suarez pointed out that Arctic Ice was disappearing faster than climate models had predicted. Dr. Meier confirmed this, stating, “… we are seeing things go much faster than what the models had projected. The models had suggested that we may see a summer without — with very little ice by the end of this century.” This all sounds very alarming to the uninformed viewer.

But PBS and Dr. Meier have ignored the elephant in the room. The elephant is the Antarctic Icecap. While satellite data shows that Arctic ice has been declining for the last 30 years, the same satellite data shows that Antarctic ice has been expanding for 30 years.

It’s interesting that climate scientists are so alarmed by declining Arctic ice. The Arctic Icecap is only 1 to 2 percent of Earth’s ice, while the elephant, the Antarctic Icecap, contains about 90 percent of Earth’s ice. The climate models underestimated the decline in Arctic ice, but they are confounded by the growth in Antarctic ice. Data from Dr. Meier’s own National Snow and Ice Center shows that the extent of Antarctic sea ice for 2012 is greater than the 1979-2000 average. I wonder why he didn’t mention the good news about Antarctic ice on the PBS segment.

The Amundsen-Scott station is the current American scientific research station at the South Pole. For more than 50 years, the United States has maintained a continuous presence at the South Pole. The Amundsen-Scott station is the third U.S. station. The first two stations were buried by accumulating snow. Every year, the South Pole receives a net snow accumulation of about eight inches. The current station is modular and supported on stilts. It can be jacked up every year above the accumulating snow to prolong its life. Contrary to the fears of Climatism, 90 percent of Earth’s icecaps are expanding!

Steve Goreham is executive director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the new book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania.

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